Golden Mare Resort

Great family holiday. We had booked a double and twin room when we arrived we were given 2 double mistake by Jet 2 Holiday Within in 3 hours we had the rooms we booked staff were great and understanding. There are a lot of bad reviews we found room pleasant not the cleanest but Aircon worked very well view was beautiful Staff worked incredibly hard everywhere always had smiles on their faces and so polite. All spoke English and were very accommodating especially the 2girls in the bar the one with the dreadlocks and young girl with the eyeliner. Really lovely hard working girls Kids enjoyed the food but us parents are vegetarian and could have done with a little more choice ( always the same!) the feta stuffed peppers ratatouille and greek yogurt were delicious Amazing views fab swimming pool we loved it! We have no hesitation to return one day 😊

A thoroughly strange experience - beautiful location and some really saintly staff in what must be very trying circumstances, but standards have slipped at this hotel and it seemed to be teetering on the edge of insolvency. It looks like it used to be luxurious or at least aspired to be so, but is just not managed well and appears to run on a shoestring budget which is inadequate for the 4-star rating. However we walked further up the hill one night and found a whole set of new apartments with the hotel logo and a swimming pool with building/finishing in progress. Just added to the puzzle. Our first room was disappointing - while exploring the small space I opened the bathroom drawer and it fell on my foot, containing the towel rail which belonged on the opposite wall. There was mould on the walls (poorly painted over) and my son's duvet had bloodstains on it. The exterior walls could have done with several coats of paint and garden areas badly needed some basic weeding and pruning. TV was not working despite my husband's finest ministrations (no functioning tv in the hotel - the front desk said they had a problem with the supplier, but we did suspect this to be the sort of problem which might be solved by subscription payment). We enlightened the cheery reservations manager as to our main issues and although she hilariously informed us that our first room had already been an upgrade (God help those in the basic level!) she moved us to a bigger room with a fabulous sea view, high up on the hill, which was ideal. Apart from no shower gel or dispenser - which proved, over the next couple of days, impossible to supply and the last straw for my husband, who was driven to expressing himself very clearly at the front desk and extracted three tiny samples for the family's week. I will say that regular human drama and despair at the front desk was our main daytime source of entertainment (in the absence of a tv). Housekeeping was a bit intermittent - one day we found beautifully concertina-ed clean towels on our bed but they were still very damp. The food was not terrible, just unimaginative / lacking seasoning or spice, with some cheap cuts, odd combinations and a shortage of Greek staples such as olives, stuffed vine leaves, halloumi, tzatziki, houmous and baklava. I overheard one of the other guests describing unhappily how she had found chunks of burger in the curry, which was described as chicken. When she asked the chef why there were burgers in the 'chicken' curry, he explained they had run out of chicken. Desserts were avoidable (a 'gateau' and three colours of ice cream - all flavourless). The coffee was nothing short of atrocious, propelling us out of the hotel every morning in search of an antidote in a couple of local cafes. Evening entertainment was entirely excellent on every night (well done entertainment manager!) albeit served alongside dubious cocktails for which the lovely bartender did his creative best with few of the standard alcoholic ingredients. Others have mentioned the desalinated water and this did add a certain unforgettable salty aspect. We hired a car and drove to Kassiopi and ate out a few times. Local restaurants were fabulous, beaches were pebbly but beautiful.